SIMPLER LIVING TECH TIP: SEPARATING EMAIL ACCOUNTS

m o r e (email sanity)

Maybe you're way ahead of me on this, but I took a step last week to decrease email bombardment and increase sanity and simplicity.

I've already taken great strides to combat my email addictive behaviors by a.) not checking it first thing in the morning and getting at least one project done first; b.) closing my email program for other stretches when I'm working on something that requires concentration; and c.) when it is up, setting it to only cruise for new messages every hour instead of every 5 or 15 or as they come in.

Not to mention getting away from my computer altogether for breaks.

But last week, I created a new email account, one that will only be used for personal or professional emails. That relegates all my mail from organizations, newsletters, blog maintenance, twitter alerts and the like to an already existing one. 

What does that mean? It means I can be concerned only with checking the new one more frequently. The other one, I can leave for when I have the time and mental space to go through. This is cutting down on the emails I have to check and making my tech life simpler and more focused.

A couple other email tips: I delete them as soon as possible, funnel the ones I need to keep but don't want cluttering up my inbox into archives (I have one archivey folder labeled nice messages too, for momentous or kind notes I want to keep), and flag everything that needs attention at a later time.

zenhabits has a nice post on how to achieve Email Zen here.

And I love lifehacker's guide to Controlling Your Email. 

Send to a Friend